by publisher

About Us

The Forge Literary Magazine was founded by volunteers from the Fiction Forge, an international online writers’ forum, which counts amongst its members and alumni winners of numerous literary awards, including the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, O. Henry Prize, the Bridport Prize, the Bristol Short Story Prize and the Pinch Literary Award in Fiction. Current and former members’ novels have been published by Bloomsbury, Chatto & Windus, Sceptre, Headline, Flatiron Books, and Little, Brown. Our all-volunteer staff shares editorial duties equally, we pay our contributors, and our taste is wide-ranging and eclectic. The Forge Literary Magazine is a project of Forge Literary Press, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization (tax ID: 82-0910097) incorporated in the state of California. We nominate our pieces for Best American Essays, Best American Short Stories, Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, and Best Microfictions. Questions? Please email us.

Founding Editor
John Haggerty
John Haggerty’s work has appeared in dozens of magazines and received awards and honors from Bridport Prize, the CRAFT Elements contest, the Nimrod Literary Awards, Pinch Literary Award in Fiction, and Wabash Prize in Fiction, among others.
Managing Editor
Sara Crowley
Sara Crowley has had over 60 short stories published (Time Out, The Irish Times, wigleaf, Hobart and many more). She’s been awarded prizes by Faber, Waterstones and others, and is a Prison Library Manager and winner of the Excellence in Prison Libraries Award.
Managing Editor
Sarah Starr Murphy
Sarah Starr Murphy’s writing is in The Threepenny Review, Epiphany, Baltimore Review, and many more. She’s eternally writing a novel and never without a book to read. She’s a marathoner with epilepsy, often found wandering the forest in rural New England.
Senior Editor
Valerie O'Riordan
Senior editor Valerie O’Riordan teaches Creative Writing at the University of Bolton. Her short fiction has been published in LitMag, The Manchester Review, Tin House, The Lonely Crowd and Banshee. In 2019, she was amongst the winners of the O. Henry Prize.
Senior Editor
Sommer Schafer
Sommer Schafer is a senior editor of The Forge Literary Magazine, and her fiction is widely published. Her first book, The Women, will be published by UnsolicitedPress in November 2023. She resides in Northern California. Read more about her writing at her website.
Editor
Damyanti Biswas
Bestselling author of the Blue Mumbai crime series, and You Beneath Your Skin. Words at Puerto del Sol, Smokelong, Griffith Review, Litro, among others, and anthologies in US, UK and elsewhere. Blogs about books and authors since 2008 at damyantiwrites.com.
Editor
Jacky Taylor
Jacky Taylor writes long and short fiction. Her work has been published in Foundling Review, The Bridport Prize, Asham Award Anthologies and elsewhere. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Chichester and won the 2015 Momaya Short Story Award.
Editor
Rachel Wild
Rachel Wild received an MA in Creative Writing from Sussex University. A writer of fiction and nonfiction, she has published with Ellipsis Zine, VERSIFICATION, The HU among others. She is currently working on a novel. She resides in East London.
Editor
Sarah Broderick
Sarah Broderick earned an MA in Humanities & Social Thought and an MFA in Creative Writing, published, and won awards. Today, as S. Miriam Merces, she explores her experiences living in and returning to the Ohio River Valley. She may be read in Redivider and Northwest Review and is completing two projects.
Editor
Fiona McPhillips
Fiona McPhillips is an Irish journalist, author, and screenwriter. Her work has appeared in The Manchester Review, Hobart and Barren Magazine, among others. Her debut novel, When We Were Silent, will be published by Transworld and Flatiron in May 2024.
Editor
Katrin Gibb
Katrin Gibb received an MFA in fiction from San Francisco State University. She has published in numerous places including Glimmer Train, Confrontations, Fourteen Hills, The Matchbook Review, JMWW, Water~Stone, and Hobart. She writes short stories, novellas, and is currently working on a novel.
Publisher
Yosh Haggerty
Born and raised in Japan, Yosh Haggerty now splits her time between the San Francisco Bay Area and the Sierra Nevada mountains. She’s a translator of three books, a volunteer mentor to incarcerated people, and an emotional support animal for her anxious and needy borador (border collie lab mix).

Author payments in 2024 are made possible, in part, by a generous donation from Louise Haggerty.  Lou is a retired bookseller, a lifelong reader, and a passionate advocate for writers and literature. 

Readers/Interns

Paul Chuks, Maggie Ayala, Daniel Andrade Amaral, Beaumont Sugar, Madeline Graham, Odette Lester Brady, Tyler McAndrew, Yen Radecki, Amy O’Neil, James Wall, Alicia J Rouverol, Sophia Ofuokwu

Past Editors/Readers

Heather Cripps, Valerie Waterhouse, Stephanie Doeing, Dylan Brie Ducey, Dan Malakin, Frances Gapper, Barbara Barrow, Sandy Kline, Diane Hall, Sam Nicol, Katie Oliver, Mary Thompson, Jim Toal, Ana Robbins, Chelsea Thornton, Briana Loveall, Anna Bowen, Carol Ermis, Taylor Raucher, E.L. Cork, Elizabeth S. Mitchell, Jillian Luft, Shelby Lummus, Ashley Espinoza

places we've been

Here is a partial list of where we’ve published collectively (in no particular order): Tin House Online, The Manchester Review, LitMag, Fugue, The Lonely Crowd, Unthology, Hobart, Glimmer Train, Carolina Quarterly, Michigan Quarterly Review, Indiana Review, Santa Monica Review, Boulevard, Nimrod, New Orleans Review, Adroit Journal, 3:AM, frigg, Smokelong Quarterly, Ninth Letter, Fiction, Water~Stone Review, Baltimore Review, Ambit, Bridport Prize Anthologies, monkeybicycle, matchbook, Catapult, Cimarron Review, The Pinch, Fractured Lit, Fourteen Hills, Literal Latté, Confrontation, North American Review, Corium, Forge Literary Magazine*, Lunch Ticket, Jellyfish Review, Vestal Review, CRAFT Literary, Pithead Chapel, wigleaf, Atticus Review, Moon City Review, Virago Press (Asham Award), Bath Short Story Award anthology, IS&T, among many others.

(*Occasionally, our published authors subsequently join our editorial team, foregoing their right to publish further work at the Forge Literary Magazine.)

Our copyediting policy

FLM does not use a standard style guide, striving, instead, to achieve accuracy and internal consistency within each published piece. We aim to respect the voice, language choices and personality of each individual writer, reflecting the wide range of English variants used internationally. Punctuation and spellings of certain words (eg color/colour) will therefore vary from piece to piece. Editors will, at their discretion, make suggestions for improvements but changes are discussed with the writer before publishing.

donate

If you are able, please consider supporting the Forge Literary Magazine, an independent, non-profit, all volunteer-run publisher. All proceeds go to paying writers and running the website. Your donation to the Forge Literary Magazine is tax deductible to the full extent of the law.